This invention relates generally to a document processing system and, more particularly, to an accounting system, for use with such document processing system, that receives a first information set and a second information set from multiple document processing facilities for storing the same as a virtually integrated unit.
Electronic reprographic machines or electronic printing systems may possess a wide range of system functions, including binding, scanning, stapling, stitching, shrink wrapping, etc. A print shop may use an electronic reprographic machine with robust functionality to meet the needs of customers who seek copies of "short run" jobs. Even though short run jobs may not require the setting of a master, they still may utilize a large range of functions and materials (e.g. paper and toner). Maintaining records of those functions employed and materials used is a simple matter for electronic reprographic machines with digital capability and mass memory, e.g. a disk storage device.
In one example, a record of the materials used for each short run job (hereinafter referred to simply as "job") is maintained in a dedicated account for a customer. In one conventional approach, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,117,258 to Iwata (Issued: May 26, 1992), each customer is mapped to a given paper type set with a plurality of paper types. Additionally, each paper type in the set is provided with a fixed rate. As the job for a given customer is executed, the number of sheets used for each paper type is counted and the number of sheets used for each paper type is tabulated. The tabulated sums are then multiplied with their respective rates so that a billable amount for the paper types used can be determined. The billable amounts are then summed to provide a total cost for paper used.
The approach of Iwata appears to be inefficient, with respect to memory usage because, as shown in FIG. 10 of Iwata, the set of paper types is set uniformly for each customer. It will be appreciated that the needs of the customers changes over time and the demand of even a single customer may vary over time. This apparent problem of setting uniform account size for each customer appears to be solved by U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,344 to Bennett (Issued: Sep. 8, 1992) in which a machine administrator can create a new account and specify a subset of system functions, from a set of system functions, to be used in the new account. In particular, it is believed that the set of system functions is "hard-coded" into the associated electronic reprographic machine in the form of a predesignated set of billing meters and the system administrator can specify which of the billing meters in the hard-coded set are to be used in setting up the new account.
While this approach disclosed by Bennett is certainly more flexible than the approach provided by Iwata, the Bennett approach is not believed to provide a maximum degree of flexibility in either accommodating for new billing meters or providing for the deletion of preexisting billing meters. That is, for the situation in which billing meters are hard-coded in the host electronic reprographic machine, it is impossible to add or subtract from the meter set without writing code for the machine operating system and recompiling the operating system in order to implement such new code. It would be desirable to allow for a situation in which a user can freely add a new billable meter to or subtract a billable meter from the billable meter set without recompiling the operating system of the reprographic machine.
Additionally, the account setup disclosed by Bennett is believed to be inflexible in that an account is set up in terms of customers. In particular, a customer may wish to use the host electronic reprographic machine to print multiple jobs over time. In one example, a first print set of a job may be executed on one day and a second print set of a job may be executed on a second day. Moreover, the user may wish to be billed separately for each of the first and second jobs. The accounting system of Bennett does not appear to provide the flexibility to maintain a separateness between the first and second jobs in a single account. This is because accounting is performed on a customer rather than a job basis. It would be desirable to provide an accounting system that maintains a record of each instance of a job's printing so that a detailed record of the job, with respect to functions performed on the job and materials employed in printing the job can be maintained over an extended period.